Ritchie, Hodge at Warners tableWarner Bros. is launching a King Arthur project with "Sherlock Holmes" helmer Guy Ritchie attached to direct and "Trainspotting" scribe John Hodge scripting for Atlas Entertainment and Hollywood Gang. . . .Hodge is working on the script with Ritchie with the project aimed to be a re-imagining of the legend of Arthur, believed to have been a sixth century king defended Britain against Saxon invaders. Key source material will be Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," first published in 1485 as a compilation of French and English tales. . . .Variety, March 9

EXCLUSIVE: After numerous attempts by Warner Bros to make a new version of the King Arthur legend, I’m hearing that Guy Ritchie is again looking to make the movie. This one is a tentpole fantasy retelling of the Arthur legend, meant to span six films. It was created by Joby Harold, who wrote the script for the first film. Producing is Akiva Goldsman through Weed Road, Harold and Tory Tunnell through Safehouse Pictures, and Ritchie’s partner Lionel Wigram. Ritchie and Wigram previously developed a version of the King Arthur saga based on a script by Trainspotting scribe John Hodge, but it lost steam when it looked like the one by David Dobkin was going to happen.

Warner Bros got closest to a production start with Dobkin’s Arthur & Lancelot, with Colin Farrell most recently at the center of talks to revive the project as Lancelot, and they chased Gary Oldman for the Merlin role. Warner Bros paid $2 million to acquire Dobkin’s script, but unplugged the film the first time because its $130 million budget was $20 million too high, with Game Of Thrones’ Kit Harington to play Arthur and Robocop‘s Joel Kinnaman to play Lancelot. Those young upstarts were unproven screen commodities. Other projects previously considered by Warners was a remake of the 1981 John Boorman pic Excalibur that had X-Men helmer Bryan Singer attached; there is also a Harry Potter-style take being produced by Donald DeLine that isn’t really impacted by any of this. . . .